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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25803829">Be Not Afraid</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/renaissance/pseuds/renaissance'>renaissance</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>you might belong in hufflepuff [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Hogwarts House Sorting, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fear, Friendship, Gen, Hogwarts Third Year, Hufflepuff Draco Malfoy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 10:42:47</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>10,672</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25803829</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/renaissance/pseuds/renaissance</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>After Professor Lupin shows his third years a Boggart, a new craze sweeps through Hufflepuff house: everyone is facing their fears. Draco, still something of a reluctant Hufflepuff, thinks it's ridiculous—but the thing about fear is that it has a way of finding you, whether you like it or not. (And having a group of well-meaning but over-enthusiastic friends to guide you through it doesn't hurt, either.)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>you might belong in hufflepuff [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/998829</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>32</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>137</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Be Not Afraid</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>so i wrote this whole thing in one day?? which is kind of crazy. never done anything quite so audacious before. i hadn't planned on writing a third year fic for this series at all until i finished off the second part, and the whole thing took shape remarkably fast, and before i knew it... well, this happened. hope you enjoy!</p><p>as a note of caution, there is one very brief moment of internalised homophobia in this fic. (which, yes, will be explored in more depth later in the series, if you hadn't already got the hint from draco mooning over professor lockhart last time)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The sun was rising over Hogwarts; by Draco’s wristwatch, it was just now five in the morning. These early mornings were the only time Draco got to himself; it had been that way over summer, and it would be that way throughout the school year, though the year had only just begun. Draco was living a double life—somehow, in the midst of it, he had to make time for himself.</p><p>Yet, as he sat in the window seat in his dorm room, parchment resting on his tucked-up knees, he didn’t feel content. He didn’t feel happily alone and comfortable authentic, as he’d told himself he would whenever he was removed from both his family and his new life as a blood traitor Hufflepuff. He just felt miserable.</p><p>It wasn’t that he didn’t look forward to writing to his mother—theoretically, this should have been the highlight of his week—but that he found himself editorialising which details of his life he could and couldn’t include. “Editorialising” was Susan’s word of the minute. She had developed a habit of reading the Prophet obsessively and comparing it to the news her aunt sent in <em>her</em> letters, which Susan read aloud in the common room, presumably to make Draco unimaginably jealous, that someone could write letters about the most mundane things and yet fill them with so much affection.</p><p>With him it was all, how are you, yes I’m very well thanks, yes classes have started, no the Quidditch tryouts haven’t happened yet, yes it’s true I dropped out of Care of Magical Creatures after two days because a Hippogriff scratched me on the arm, no I haven’t spoken to Pansy… Draco made an angry fist around his quill. Why the fuck would he have spoken to Parkinson? What business was it of his mother’s?</p><p>Draco didn’t write any of that. He didn’t write anything that felt attached to his actual life. Nothing about how he hadn’t felt safe to write to Zacharias and Susan over the holidays, and as a result they had been unable to coordinate electives, and he shared none with Zacharias, and only one—Ancient Runes—with Susan. (She was in Care of Magical Creatures too, but despite Draco’s father’s advice, passed on via his mother, he had dropped that horrid class as soon as he had half an excuse.) Nothing about how he was spending half his time with Justin now, in Runes and Divination, and how on their third day back they had gone to the library and tried to break into the restricted section so Justin could find a copy of <em>Divining the Mundane: Experimentations in Predicting the Future of Muggles</em>, and ended up writing lines together in Professor Sprout’s office that night. Nothing about how he grabbed Justin by the sleeve and ducked around the corner every time they passed Slytherins on the way to class, because Draco was still shitting himself at the thought of word getting around that he was fraternising with the enemy.</p><p>Nothing about how he was here, at Hogwarts, in Hufflepuff, and he was happier than he had been all summer—with the exception of these moments, where he was forced to remember who he was <em>meant</em> to be.</p><p>In the end he allowed one barb—as Susan would say—to slip past the editor: <em>Even if Pansy Parkinson did want to “catch up” with me, as you say, we would have nothing to say to each other</em>.</p><p>There. <em>Yours, Draco</em>.</p><p>He folded the letter and cast a quick, quiet charm to seal it. He’d deliver the letter to his owl, nesting in the Hogwarts Owlery, later. Everyone sent letters in the morning. Not many people were willing to be five minutes late to Transfiguration because they took a detour.</p><p>The window seat in Draco’s dorm was below ground, and the window itself was above it; blades of grass and stray wildflowers brushed the bottom of the glass. Though the common room was in the dungeons, they couldn’t justify depriving the students of any light at all. Draco had read in <em>Hogwarts: A History</em> that the Slytherin common room and dorms were beneath the lake, so all the light they had was filtered through an eerie green glow. Even just a year ago, he would’ve given anything to be able to see that. Now he was content to watch points of light creep across the dewy grass, to see the canopy of the Forbidden Forest in the distance take on a yellow haze as the grounds of Hogwarts came alive in the morning light.</p><p>Draco felt a hand on his shoulder—then Zacharias shook him, hard.</p><p>“Good morning to you too,” Draco grumbled.</p><p>“Thought you might have fallen asleep there,” Zacharias said. “Anyway, put that shit away. Do you want to be a poet or do you want to get on the Quidditch team?”</p><p>Tryouts were that coming weekend. Last year’s team had voted Cedric in as Captain again, and now they were holding their regular spill for all the other positions. Still no spot for Draco as Seeker, then, but he would be happy to be a Chaser alongside Zacharias. And so they were practising. Hard.</p><p>“I was writing to my family,” Draco said. “Unlike <em>some</em> people, I actually know how to do that.”</p><p>Zacharias scowled. He was still smarting over a rude letter from his Muggle mother two days ago, typed on Muggle paper, telling him that if he didn’t write regularly this year he would be grounded for all of the next summer. Though according to Zacharias his mother had very little interest in anything magical, she had found out about the Chamber of Secrets debacle and decided that Hogwarts was dangerous, and now she was on the warpath about it. Wait until she hears about the serial killer on the loose, Draco had joked, and Zacharias had nearly thrown him down a moving staircase, while Draco and Susan laughed their heads off.</p><p>“Whatever. Look, nobody’s going to be on the pitch right now. Let’s throw some fucking Quaffles.”</p><p>And though Draco was tired from having been up an hour already, and hungry to boot, he stuffed the letter in his robe pockets and sprung up from the window seat. “Well don’t just stand there, Smith.”</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Draco’s eyes were red and raw by the time he made it—almost, but not quite, late—to Defence Against the Dark Arts. There was no way he was going to miss his favourite class, not even if he had spent all morning crying in the bathroom because once again Zacharias had made it onto the Quidditch team and Draco hadn’t. Draco was trying something new this year: instead of taking it out on Zacharias and refusing to talk to him for months on end, he cried it out and kicked the toilet cubicle walls until his toes hurt, while a strange ghost called Myrtle egged him on. And now Draco was going to be a good and supportive best friend—that was what they were, he assumed—and go to every Hufflpuff match and cheer for Zacharias until his throat hurt.</p><p>“You look like crap,” Susan said, as Draco slid into the seat beside her. Professor Lupin was up the front of the classroom, but he hadn’t started the lesson yet, and the Hufflepuffs were talking amongst themselves. Zacharias was showing off to Megan, who also hadn’t made it onto the team.</p><p>“I was sneezing,” Draco said.</p><p>“Uh huh.” Susan reached for her wand, and grabbed Draco’s chin. “This won’t hurt a bit.”</p><p>Before Draco could ask <em>what</em> wouldn’t hurt, she waved her wand and mumbled a spell, and a sudden shockwave pulsed across Draco’s face, like his nose had exploded and sent something fresh and pepperminty coursing through his skin.</p><p>“There,” Susan said. She showed Draco his face in her pocket mirror: the blotchy redness he’d seen in the bathroom mirror was gone, and his nose was unblocked, to boot.</p><p>“Where did you learn that?” Draco asked, awed.</p><p>“Donna taught it to me,” she said. Donna was a fifth year, one of Quidditch Heidi’s friends, who Draco only knew passingly through Zacharias. Draco had certainly never seen Susan talking to her. “It’s meant to offset the symptoms of the common cold, but, well… there are no rules against using it when you’ve been crying.”</p><p>“I wasn’t—” Draco began. He would have defended himself further, but Professor Lupin stood up from his desk at the front of the room, and signalling that class was about to start.</p><p>Defence had always been Draco’s favourite class. Though they never really got the chance to use the spells they read about, Draco knew he was talented at defensive magic in a way he wasn’t at charms or transfiguration, though he was very good at those too. He just knew it. Maybe it was how he had been raised—around things that Professor Lupin would probably call the Dark Arts themselves. Either way, this was the sort of magic that got Draco’s blood pumping, even just reading about it.</p><p>When he’d heard about Professor Lupin’s appointment over the summer, from eavesdropping on his parents, Draco had assumed he’d hate Lupin. “A friend of Black’s from Hogwarts, I recall,” Lucius had said, and something in his tone told Draco right away that this wasn’t any of the Blacks in his mother’s immediate family. Lucius had confirmed it: “Not a good look for Dumbledore, with that maniac on the loose…”</p><p>Now, thinking back on it, he couldn’t believe he’d jumped to such a conclusion. Sure, Sirius Black was a serial killer, but he was also a blood traitor, just like Draco. From Hufflepuff, Gryffindor was another planet, but Draco knew that red and yellow both looked like orange to a Slytherin. Draco couldn’t help but feel like Sirius Black might have understood him, if he hadn’t gone mad and, well, made the other choice to the one Draco was gradually making. Black’s friends from before were probably pretty alright people.</p><p>And, as it turned out, Professor Lupin was the <em>best</em>.</p><p>“Thank you for your patience,” Lupin said. “I’m afraid this lesson was a little slow to start, as one of the students in my last class nearly broke the apparatus I’ve been using to contain our practical exercise today. Now, let’s head off—I have to keep the thing elsewhere.”</p><p>Draco jumped to his feet. A practical exercise? Lupin just got better and better. Draco liked his understated flair, and his wry humour, too—the <em>apparatus</em> he’d mentioned was a simple wardrobe.</p><p>“Today we will be facing a Boggart. Can anyone tell me what a Boggart is?”</p><p>Ernie’s hand went right up, and Lupin nodded at him. “It’s a creature that takes the shape of your worst fear,” Ernie said. “But it can be—”</p><p>“Alright, let’s not spoil the surprise,” Lupin said. “I’ll have you all line up, so we can face the Boggart one at a time. Ernie, how about you go first?”</p><p>To his credit, Ernie didn’t shrink back from the invitation. He grasped his wand tight and stood boldly at the front of the line, while Draco and Zacharias—both of whom knew that it was extremely uncool to come off too eager in class, even if they both agreed that Lupin was the bee’s knees—gravitated to the back.</p><p>“When I open this wardrobe,” Lupin said, addressing the class, “Ernie will be faced with the thing he fears the most. He will have to face his fear for long enough to cast <em>Riddikulus</em>.”</p><p>The wardrobe shook. So did Ernie’s wand hand.</p><p>“Let’s practice it,” Lupin said. While the Boggart rumbled around inside the wardrobe, Lupin had the class raise their wands and shout <em>Riddikulus</em> at nothing. It should have felt ridiculous, but Lupin took this work seriously, and so the rest of them did as well.</p><p>“The best thing we can do in the face of our fears,” Lupin said, “is laugh at them. Ernie, are you ready for me to open the wardrobe?”</p><p>Ernie nodded; he seemed less sure by the minute.</p><p>“You look scared,” Lupin said, “and that’s alright. Just picture the thing you fear the most, and start thinking about how you might turn it into something you can laugh at. Everyone else, stand back, so the Boggart doesn’t get confused.”</p><p>The wardrobe was rattling now, the Boggart ready to burst out. Ernie squared his shoulders, as, with just a flick of his wand, Lupin opened the wardrobe’s doors.</p><p>Out came a man dressed in rags, with long, straggly hair that curtained his face so that just one manic eye peered out. Everyone in the class gasped, except Draco and Susan, who looked at each other with wide eyes, in recognition. This was a face they had seen in the Prophet, staring out of the urgent notices that Sirius Black had escaped from Azkaban.</p><p>Shouting, raving, the Boggart made straight for Ernie, but Draco turned to watch Professor Lupin. Lupin had gone pale as the dead; his mouth was hanging open, his arms slack, wand almost falling from his fingers.</p><p>Ernie sucked in a big breath, and his bellow of “<em>Riddikulus!</em>” filled the whole space. Draco turned back just in time to see the Boggart do a pirouette, and then begin a sort of highland dance, as Ernie’s fingers tapped out a melody on the side of his wand. The class laughed; even Draco, who was reluctantly impressed at how well Ernie had handled it all.</p><p>Lupin came back to attention, too, and waved his wand to usher the Boggart back in the wardrobe. The doors shut with a <em>snap</em>.</p><p>“Professor, wait, I want a turn!” Megan said, bouncing on her heels.</p><p>“And you will have one, in just a moment,” Lupin said steadily. “Ernie, was that… ?”</p><p>“It’s Susan’s fault,” he said defensively.</p><p>“Hey!” Susan said.</p><p>“I mean—” Ernie ducked his head. “It’s my fault. When Susan leaves the Prophet around our spot in the common room, I’ve been reading it too much, and I keep thinking about—the idea of having a murderer on the loose, it’s so very—”</p><p>“It’s a very understandable fear to have,” Lupin said. He remained calm, but he still looked a little queasy. “But you must rest assured that there is no safer place in our world than Hogwarts, and that your friends and family outside the school are more than well equipped to deal with him, as well as all the Aurors at the Ministry.” Lupin smiled crookedly. “I mean, he’s been in Azkaban for how long? Twelve years? I’m sure he could barely wave a wand, even if he managed to get his hands on one.”</p><p>Ernie laughed weakly. It seemed like he, too, could tell Lupin was shaken by this. Everyone was a little scared of Sirius Black, but Draco knew it had to be worse, since Lupin and Black had been friends. Not that he would tell anyone—he didn’t want to get Lupin in any sort of trouble.</p><p>“Now,” Lupin said, “Megan. I think you volunteered to go next?”</p><p>In the lull, as Professor Lupin prepared to open up the wardrobe again, Draco thought about what the Boggart might become when it came to his turn. Draco didn’t like to think of himself as being scared of anything, but he was, as evidenced by all that time he’d spent crying and kicking things in the bathroom that morning. He was scared of not being good enough. Of failing. Of rejection, maybe. He was scared of the Slytherins finding out he was a blood traitor and he was scared of his Hufflepuff friends knowing he still cared what the Slytherins thought. He was scared of his father finding out. Merlin, he was scared of his father. What if the Boggart turned into Lucius Malfoy? Draco would never live down the embarrassment.</p><p>Lupin opened the wardrobe, and in the ensuing cacophony—the Boggart had turned into a flock of screeching birds—Draco tiptoed out the classroom door.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Zacharias and Susan found Draco at lunchtime, sitting on the lawns, hiding from just about everyone. How they had locked onto him, he had no idea, but he was glad they were there.</p><p>“We brought you food,” Susan said, shoving a plate at him. “Stop skipping lunch, idiot.”</p><p>“I don’t make a habit of it,” Draco said.</p><p>“Yes, you do,” Zacharias said. He sat down next to Draco, and Susan on his other side. “Skipping class, too.”</p><p>“It was urgent,” Draco said, mouth full of food. “I was—I had to send a letter.”</p><p>“Sure,” Susan said. “If you say so.”</p><p>Zacharias’ take on the situation was far less generous: “You ran off from the Boggart because you don’t want everyone to know you’re a big scaredy-cat.”</p><p>“Yeah, Draco,” Susan said. He glared at her, betrayed. “What <em>are</em> you so scared of, anyway, that you don’t want anyone to know?”</p><p>“Is it also Sirius Black?” Zacharias mused. “Are you pissed because Ernie stole your thunder?”</p><p>“It’s none of your business,” Draco said.</p><p>“I’m scared of lightning,” Susan said. “No, really! Before I came to Hogwarts and settled with my auntie, I lived with my parents, always travelling for work. When I was four, we lived for six months in Tampa—it’s, er, in America, a beach city, I remember my parents telling me how lucky I was, because most people only went there for holidays. But it also storms a lot, and I went from having never seen a thunderstorm to an unlucky two months where there were <em>eleven</em> of them, and, our house nearly burnt down and er, I don’t know, it kind of left a mark, I guess? I really hated it there…” She trailed off and scratched the back of her head, embarrassed. “Anyway, the Boggart took the shape of a thundercloud, and there was loud lightning, and everything…”</p><p>“Um,” Draco said, because he didn’t know what to say to all that. “You weren’t… embarrassed?”</p><p>“Of course I was,” Susan said. “But so was everyone else, when it was their turn. And anyway, nobody’s fear was worse than Zach’s.”</p><p>Zacharias was bright red. “Come on, Susan—”</p><p>“I just think it’s not fair that Draco missed out on the fun,” she said, teasing. To Draco: “Zach’s Boggart was <em>himself</em>.”</p><p>“What!” Draco exclaimed, setting his plate aside so he could clap his hands. Oh, this was brilliant. This was fodder he could use to pick on Zacharias for the rest of their lives.</p><p>“It was <em>not</em>,” Zacharias said. “Ugh, it was—it was me but older. Old and boring. I looked kind of like my father.”</p><p>Draco didn’t think that was so bad, but the torturous way each word came out of Zacharias—like someone was plucking his hairs out one by one—told a different story. Draco had to remind himself that Zacharias did not find his father admirable. Did Draco find his father admirable? Surely he did. Then why had be been so scared that the Boggart would take his form?</p><p>Back to form, Zacharias said, “Anyway it’s not half as embarrassing as being the person who skipped class rather than face his fears.”</p><p>“I’m not really afraid of anything, to be honest,” Draco said lightly, and Zacharias punched him hard in the arm.</p><p>“Bullshit.”</p><p>“No, really,” Draco said. He rubbed his arm. “I mean, lightning? Growing old?”</p><p>“Becoming boring,” Zacharias corrected him.</p><p>“Whatever. It’s all small potatoes to me.”</p><p>“Alright, Mister Gryffindor,” Susan said. “Since you’re so brave, you want to come join the rest of us for lunch? Ooh, they might laugh at you like we did, but you’re not scared, are you?”</p><p>“Of course not,” Draco said, picking up the plate again. In truth, it did unnerve him, but not because of any tangible fear. What did it say that Susan calling him a Gryffindor felt worse than the thought that the Boggart would turn into his father?</p><p>Mercifully, when they got to the Great Hall, none of the other Hufflepuffs seemed the least bit interested in what Draco was afraid of. Neither had they exhausted the topic—it seemed as though everyone wanted to discuss their greatest fear.</p><p>“Well, nothing to it,” Ernie was saying. “I simply have to stop reading the Prophet.”</p><p>“We’re getting over our fears,” Megan explained, as Draco sat down. “When I’ve finished eating I’m going to go out on the lawns and run head-first into the flock of ducks by the lake.”</p><p>“<em>Ducks</em>?” Draco was not impressed.</p><p>“Hey,” Megan said, “I’m working up to the scary ones.”</p><p>“You don’t have to tell us what you’re afraid of,” Hannah said—maybe <em>she</em> would be Draco’s new best friend, since his current ones were not to be trusted, “but you should try to get over your fears, too!”</p><p>Draco shrugged. No chance.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Ernie’s fear of Sirius Black had suddenly become a lot more urgent.</p><p>“It’s because I didn’t stop reading the Prophet like I said I would,” he whined, sleeping bag pulled up to his nose. The entire school was in the Great Hall tonight, each with a sleeping bag to keep them comfortable and with the novelty to do a slapdash job of keeping them distracted from the fact that Sirius Black had broken into Hogwarts—on Halloween, no less.</p><p>A strange atmosphere had settled over the night. The Great Hall was cold and uncomfortable, and nobody wanted to sleep; everybody wanted to gossip, which could only gossip when the patrolling Prefects were far enough away.</p><p>“Wouldn’t want to be Prophet Ernie right now,” whispered Zacharias; he took a considerable amount of joy in conveying this information. “He’s really shitting himself, isn’t he?”</p><p>“I bet Lupin is too,” Wayne said. “Did you see how freaked out he was when the Boggart turned into Black?”</p><p>“Yeah, proper frightened,” Zacharias said. “And Lupin’s smarter than the lot of us, so you know he’s bad. I’m telling you, someone’s going to get murdered tonight. Like in one of those Muggle shows, you know, where the lights go out and when they come back on somebody’s a corpse. I bet it’ll be Potter.”</p><p>Draco wasn’t too concerned with whether or not Potter would get murdered tonight, but he was starting to get kind of annoyed with Zacharias and Wayne, who were both being quite flippant about it, despite their talk. He shuffled his sleeping bag to the other end of their cluster, hoping to avoid any conversation at all, but was immediately accosted by Justin, who was grinning in the low light.</p><p>“Not you, too,” Draco said.</p><p>“Hmm?”</p><p>“This isn’t <em>fun</em> or <em>exciting</em>,” he said. “I’m not scared like Ernie, Merlin no, but this floor is so hard, it’s a wonder anyone’s sleeping at all.”</p><p>“Oh, not at all!” Justin said. “I’m just glad to see you. I’ve been meaning to ask you something all day.”</p><p>Draco glowered at him.</p><p>“Listen, everyone’s big on getting over their fears right now,” Justin said, and didn’t Draco know it. Megan had been in the Owlery before dinner and came back covered in feathers and shit, stinking up the dinner table. “So I was thinking I might get to work on my fear of heights.”</p><p>That’s right—Justin and heights. Draco wondered how a Boggart would turn itself into that.</p><p>“Well,” Justin went on, “would you teach me to fly?”</p><p>“Would I?” Draco said, confused. Would he?</p><p>“I asked Zach first, since he’s on the Quidditch team,” Justin said, a little slyly, “but he said you’re much better at flying than he is, though he’s of course the better Chaser. So what about it?”</p><p>Bloody Zacharias. “I mean, I <em>am</em> better at flying…”</p><p>“That’s the spirit,” Justin said. “Oh, and Anthony wants to learn too. You could teach both of us!”</p><p>“Who’s Anthony?” Draco was unconvinced. “You found someone else who’s afraid of heights?”</p><p>“You know Anthony,” Justin said. “Zach’s friend from the Duelling Club. Anyway, Anthony broke his leg in the very second flying lesson—terrible break, had to be in and out of the Hospital Wing for weeks—so he never really learnt.”</p><p>Draco couldn’t put a face to the boy who Zacharias had partnered with in the Duelling Club last year, because he had been very studiously avoiding looking in Zacharias’ direction at the time, with the exception of a few glances askance to make sure Zacharias wasn’t having too much fun without him. But he did remember a Ravenclaw breaking his leg in one of their first year flying lessons.</p><p>“Just the two of you?” Draco said. “You’re not going to suddenly tell me that actually, Abbott’s afraid of heights too? Some second year you found hiding under a tree?”</p><p>Justin laughed, then slapped a hand over his mouth as the sound of a Prefect’s footsteps came closer. They waited in silence until the Prefect was gone, biting their lips to stop from giggling each time they made eye contact.</p><p>At last, Justin said, “No, nobody else. So you’ll do it?”</p><p>“Do I have a choice?”</p><p>“If we try it on our own, Anthony might break his leg again,” Justin said. “His <em>other</em> leg.”</p><p>“Alright, fine,” Draco said. “Friday, after class. And don’t you dare bring anyone other than Anthony.”</p><p>“Scout’s honour,” Justin said.</p><p>“What does—”</p><p>Draco was about to ask what a scout’s honour was—Justin talked about Muggle concepts a lot, and Draco couldn’t make head nor tail of them—but a Prefect was coming their way again, and Justin put a finger to his lips.</p><p>“Later,” Justin said. “We should probably try to sleep.”</p><p>Merlin, Draco thought, as he rolled onto his back to do just that, Hufflepuffs were so boring.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>“You bastard,” Draco said, shoving Zacharias in the shoulder as he sat down the next morning, in the freshly cleaned up Great Hall.</p><p>“What?” Zacharias said. “Nobody died.”</p><p>“Palming off Justin and what’s-his-name onto me for Quidditch lessons… you could just have said <em>no</em>.”</p><p>“Anthony,” Zacharias said. “And Justin would’ve asked you next anyway. I was just speeding the process along.”</p><p>“So like I said, you were being a bastard. Why couldn’t you do it, anyway?”</p><p>“Too busy playing <em>real</em> Quidditch,” Zacharias said, which shut Draco right up.</p><p>Draco gave Zacharias the silent treatment all through breakfast. But this wasn’t something they fought about anymore. He caught Zacharias just as they were leaving to go their separate way for electives: Draco to Divination, and Zacharias to Muggle Studies.</p><p>“Are we still on for chess at lunch?” he asked.</p><p>“Only if you’re ready for me to use you as a mop,” Zacharias said. He punched Draco in the arm, but not so hard it meant <em>fuck off</em>. “Have fun in Divination with your new best friend.”</p><p>“Oh, fuck off,” Draco said.</p><p>He and Justin were the only two Hufflepuffs in their grade who took Divination; they combined with a handful of Ravenclaws for the lesson while Zacharias went off with Ernie, Wayne, and Megan to learn about Muggles. In all honesty, it could be interesting—Draco would certainly have a lot to learn—but he couldn’t be caught dead in the class for all the obvious reasons. He’d chosen Care of Magical Creatures because his parents had some weird opinions about how being able to commune with beasts made you a stronger Wizard, Ancient Runes because his parents had some good opinions about how it connected you to your magical ancestry, and Divination because his parents wanted him to do Arithmancy, and Divination was the soft option—no way was Draco going to make his life even harder. Now he wished he’d chosen Arithmancy; apart from having a lighter load without Creatures, Zacharias was the only Hufflepuff in Arithmancy, and though he never complained Draco knew he felt a little out of place.</p><p>So they parted ways, and Justin caught up with Draco on their way up to Professor Trelawney’s strange classroom. The first time they’d been in there, Justin had said, “Smells a little bit like pot.” </p><p>“Like a cooking pot?” Draco had asked. What on Earth were Muggle kitchens like? But Justin had only patted him on the arm.</p><p>“Morning, Draco,” Justin said. “Looking forward to our lesson on Friday?”</p><p>“I would rather hex my own eyebrows off,” Draco said.</p><p>“Oh, don’t be such a sourpuss. You’ll enjoy it.”</p><p>“Want to read the tea leaves and find out?” Draco mimed peering into a teacup. “I imagine Trelawney could tell me how I feel about teaching you to fly. She would just have to look at my face.”</p><p>“Why did you even take Divination?” Justin asked.</p><p>“So you wouldn’t be the only one of us in the class,” Draco said—it had sounded like a great retort in his head but when he said it out loud he just felt stupid and sappy. He tried to salvage it: “I mean, obviously I’m so good at Divination already, which is why I knew that would be the case.”</p><p>“Right, right,” Justin said, unperturbed. “But by that logic, I should have taken Muggle Studies.”</p><p>“Why didn’t you?”</p><p>“Well, because I already know everything there is to know,” he said. “Literally everything.”</p><p>“Bullshit,” Draco said.</p><p>“You have no way of proving me wrong,” Justin said. “You’re so convinced Wizards are better at everything, it won’t even occur to you to know your enemy.”</p><p>Draco frowned. It hadn’t occurred to him, not like that. “I’m not…”</p><p>“Sorry,” Justin said, genuinely contrite. “I know. I was just joking.”</p><p>They were silent the rest of the way to the classroom, but there was really no avoiding conversation in the Divination attic. Professor Trelawney had them sitting at cramped little tea tables for three; Draco and Justin worked with a Ravenclaw called Terry, who didn’t seem to be on the best terms with the other three Ravenclaws in the class, and looked like he rather regretted being there in the first place. Nevertheless, he took it all very seriously, and put a lot of effort into reading tea leaves—their topic for the first few weeks—which didn’t pay off. Professor Trelawney was of the opinion that Terry did not have sufficient propinquity to his inner eye.</p><p>She was a touch kinder to Draco and Justin; especially Justin, who she regarded as something of a curiosity, being Muggle-born. She reminded them of this today: “You know, dear, there are very few of your kind with such a talent for divining. Do keep it up!”</p><p>“I think that’s a <em>little</em> racist,” said Terry, once Trelawney had swept over to the other table.</p><p>“Racist how?” Draco asked. Last time he’d checked, Justin and Trelawney both had the same colour skin.</p><p>“You’d know if you took Muggle Studies,” Justin said.</p><p>“No,” Terry said morosely, “he wouldn’t.”</p><p>Terry was half-blood, but raised mostly Muggle (due to some family estrangement he had only ever alluded to once), so he and Justin had a lot to chat about on that front. While they commiserated over Wizards being weird about the Muggle background thing, Draco finished his cup of tea. He shook the leaves at the bottom, and they resolved into a clump with two smaller patches sticking out from one side.</p><p>No, no, no—not the Grim. Just about anything other than the Grim, please. Draco blew into the cup and shook it a little, redistributing the leaves. It wasn’t cheating.</p><p>“What’ve you got?” Terry asked. “Mine looks like a Fleur De Lys.”</p><p>“Looks like a penis to me,” Justin said, matter-of-fact. “Mine is… hmm… I think these are letters… it’s trying to send me a message…”</p><p>Professor Trelawney came back by their table and Justin held up his cup for her. “Yes, very good!” she exclaimed. “These appear to be the letters C and A.”</p><p>“I don’t know anyone with those initials,” Justin said.</p><p>“Well, think on it a little longer,” Trelawney said, as Terry leant across the table and surreptitiously scrawled <em>Cock and Arse</em> on Justin’s parchment. “They might not be initials… it may mean something deeper.”</p><p>“Thanks, Professor,” Justin said. He slapped a hand over the spot where Terry had written, lips wobbling with restrained laughter.</p><p>She didn’t notice—thank Merlin for Trelawney always being off in her own world—and swept over to Draco instead. “What about you?”</p><p>“I can see a horse-shoe here,” Draco said, pointing to the bow shock around the spot where he’d blown the tea leaves apart. “And I think that might be the sign of Mercury.”</p><p>“Yes, I see…” Trelawney snatched the cup from him and peered intently into it. “My dear, your reading is most astute, however I think these tea leaves have been disturbed from their original position. Perhaps you should clean your cup and pour yourself another.”</p><p>“Of course,” Draco, writing <em>letter C</em> and <em>Sign of Uranus</em> on his parchment. “Thank you, Professor.”</p><p>When she was gone—“She didn’t even bother with me,” Terry groaned—Justin took his quill to Draco’s parchment added a <em>Y</em> and an <em>O</em> before <em>Uranus</em>.</p><p>“Sign of <em>your</em> <em>anus</em>,” he said, in the same hushed, high-pitched voice Trelawney used when she was making a prediction.</p><p>“Oh my god, stop,” Terry said, as the three of them doubled over the table, unable to contain themselves.</p><p>And thank Merlin for Justin and Terry goofing off, or Draco wouldn’t have been able to stop thinking about how Trelawney had been able to tell he’d disturbed his tea leaves.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Friday afternoon came around, and Draco was dressed to fly, though privately he didn’t think he’d be able to get Justin very far off the ground. He was waiting out by a tree with his Nimbus while Justin and Anthony went to borrow school brooms from Madam Hooch. Privately, he was of the opinion that no-one could really learn much on a school broom—but Zacharias had managed for a whole year somehow. Even before he got his own Nimbus over summer, he was good.</p><p>At last Justin and Anthony arrived, carrying brooms under their arms like amateurs. Anthony walked with a limp that Draco wouldn’t have noticed if he weren’t looking for some evidence of the extraordinary broken leg that had stopped him from learning in their first year.</p><p>Anthony was all apprehension, to Justin’s nervous enthusiasm. “Alright, Malfoy,” he said.</p><p>“Alright means <em>hello</em>, if you’re not so dreadfully posh as we are,” Justin said.</p><p>“I know that,” Draco snapped.</p><p>“You’re not doing a very good job of selling this to me,” Anthony said. Draco was beginning to think that <em>Anthony wants to learn</em> might have been code for <em>Justin doesn’t want to do this alone</em>.</p><p>“Let’s just get going!” Justin said. “Before I change my mind!”</p><p>He threw his broom down on the grass and stood with his legs either side of it.</p><p>“Don’t do—er, just stand to one side of it,” Draco said. “What’s your dominant hand?”</p><p>“Left,” Justin said. “Draco, you’re in all my classes. Come on.”</p><p>“You too,” Draco said, gesturing to Anthony. He chose not to dwell on that jab at his inattentiveness. “If you’re right-handed, stand to Finch-Fletchley’s right, so your brooms don’t clash.”</p><p>“Yeah, I made it through the first lesson,” Anthony said, rolling his eyes.</p><p>Draco talked the two of them for the basics anyway, and Anthony did end up paying close attention, if only for Justin’s sake. Justin was still bouncing on his heels, and made it through the first part well enough. He even managed to sit on his hovering broom, a foot off the ground, before claiming he was going to have an attack of the vapours and coming back down again.</p><p>While Justin recovered, lying on the grass beside his broom, Draco worked with Anthony; they managed to climb quite a bit higher. “You need to put less weight on your left leg,” he said. “It was the right one you broke, wasn’t it?”</p><p>“Good guess,” Anthony said. He frowned. “Is it that obvious?”</p><p>“Not really,” Draco said. “I only know what to look for because I’m an expert. You’re tilting to the left, which means your balance is all wrong. If it’s hard to put weight on your right leg, you can make up for it by always keeping your right hand in front, and further forward than what’s comfortable, so you’re leaning on it a bit.”</p><p>Anthony nodded appreciatively. “That makes sense. Like conservation of angular momentum, right?”</p><p>Draco stared at him. “What?”</p><p>“Never mind,” Anthony said. “I suppose you’re not an expert after all. But you do know your stuff.”</p><p>“I don’t see how that’s any different.”</p><p>“Semantically speaking—”</p><p>“He’s in Ravenclaw,” Justin said, from a few feet below them. “Did he ever mention he’s in Ravenclaw?”</p><p>Anthony stuck an arm down, middle finger extended at Justin, though he didn’t turn away from Draco. “Look, sorry for being antagonistic about this. Obviously I’m a little less than enthusiastic about trying to fly after what happened last time… and, you know, you kind of have a reputation.”</p><p>“I thought you were friends with Smith,” Draco said. “Smith likes me.”</p><p>“And Justin too,” Anthony said. “But you did also go around telling everyone you were the Heir of Slytherin last year. And Terry thinks you’re a twat.”</p><p>“He does <em>not</em>.”</p><p>“Yeah, he does. He says you’re fun in class, but he wouldn’t want to get on your bad side. Which I guess I’m doing now. But seriously—you’re helping a lot. I’m just being shitty to you because I’m sort of afraid of heights as well, and talking is helping me keep my mind from it. I don’t have to look down if I’m talking. Oh, shit. How high are we?”</p><p>Draco sighed. “Don’t worry about it. You don’t need to climb any higher now… we can have another lesson.”</p><p>“I’ll damn well need another lesson,” Justin said.</p><p>“Next Friday,” Anthony said. “Oh god, oh fuck. Can we go down now?”</p><p>“Try it,” Draco said. <em>Next Friday</em>, he thought. Anthony had just decided it without asking. But Draco didn’t mind as much as he’d thought he might. It had been fun; even Anthony’s fear-reflex rudeness hadn’t put a dent in Draco’s surprisingly good mood.</p><p>Slowly, Anthony began to float down, watching his feet but stumbling as he dismounted anyway. Draco stayed up, content just to fly around for a while. He and Zacharias didn’t fly together anymore, now that Zacharias was busy with Quidditch again. Draco didn’t go out on his own as often as he could, because he was too busy having friends. Given how adamant he’d been about finding time alone so he could be his authentic self, he certainly hadn’t stuck to it, but nevertheless he felt just about right in his own skin.</p><p>He arced up over the treetops—“I think I’m going to be ill just watching him,” Justin said, and Anthony replied, but Draco was now too far away to make it out, looping around branches and diving in feints then pulling back up again. This, this was where he belonged. In the sky above Hogwarts, and down on the lawn his friends waiting for him, and— </p><p>—a dog?</p><p>Draco nearly crashed into a tree; he steadied himself quickly and looked away. What the hell was a dog doing on Hogwarts grounds? Dogs weren’t a regulation pet—it said so in the invitation letter, and even in <em>Hogwarts: A History</em>. The groundskeeper Hagrid kept a dog, which was bad enough, but this dog looked to be even bigger, with messy black hair and an almost vicious gait as it bounded across the lawn.</p><p>Shaky on his broom, Draco flew back down to the lawns. The dog was long gone.</p><p>“Did you see that?”</p><p>“See what?” Anthony asked.</p><p>“I was too busy trying to force myself to watch you,” Justin said, “so probably not.”</p><p>“This  massive black dog,” Draco said. “It went—”</p><p>He pointed in the vague direction, but now that he was back on the ground he couldn’t be certain he had the right of it.</p><p>“You’ve been spending too much time with <em>Tasseography for Beginners</em>,” Justin said. “Come on, let’s go get dinner.”</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Mercifully, Draco hadn’t seen the dog since then. He didn’t think it was the Grim, not really. But he <em>had</em> seen a dog in the teacup, and now on the lawns… in quiet moments, Draco’s mind returned to how Trelawney had known he was lying about his tea leaves. It was all starting to look a lot like a sign.</p><p>Though the weather began to turn, Justin and Anthony were keen to keep up their lessons through winter, and Draco didn’t really get a choice in the matter. Anthony was getting good—he was really into this Muggle science called “physics,” which as far as Draco could understand was all about things like weight and momentum and direction. Whatever it was, it worked for Anthony: he had stopped tilting to the left entirely. He had even managed to fly up to the treetops with Draco once, which had ended with the two of them sitting in the tree while Anthony tried to stop hyperventilating for long enough to get back onto his broom. Draco pointed out that landing in the tree was a non-standard and very impressive dismount, which cheered him up a bit.</p><p>Justin, on the other hand… he had mastered forward motion very smoothly, and had even gone backwards on a few occasions, but he could not go more than two feet above the ground. Justin called it surprisingly good progress. Draco called it, thank Merlin he had managed to teach Anthony to fly, because otherwise he would be starting to doubt his own abilities.</p><p>Though he had no luck on the broom, Justin’s real success had been in keeping all the Hufflepuffs—and even a few Ravenclaws, now—enthusiastic about the business of getting over their worst fears. Megan had made it to the point where she no longer ducked when the owl post came at breakfast; Susan’s older friend Donna had taught her a spell to shoot bolts of lightning out of her wand, so that she could experience it in a controlled environment. Ernie wasn’t having much luck with avoiding reading the Prophet, but he had managed to redirect his fear towards an outbreak of Dragon Pox in Ormskirk.</p><p>“We’re not having much luck with Hannah, though,” Ernie said dolorously over dinner one night, the last night before most of them would go home for Christmas. “The Boggart couldn’t even represent your fear, could it?”</p><p>“No,” Hannah said. “Well, I’m quite tough, and I’m not squeamish. Not much bothers me.”</p><p>“It just looked like a desk,” Susan said. “A desk in a classroom with some parchment on it, and a quill in a pot of ink. But you’re in class every day! Even Professor Lupin was baffled.”</p><p>“I don’t understand it either,” Hannah said. “The only reason I’d be at a desk like that is if I were studying, or in detention. But I’d never do anything to wind up in detention, so I really wouldn’t know…”</p><p>“Maybe that’s it,” Draco said. He didn’t want to get involved in this fear nonsense, but he couldn’t believe they were all missing something so obvious. “You’ve never been in detention because you’re afraid of getting in trouble.”</p><p>“Oh,” Hannah said quietly. “Well… I suppose that <em>could</em> be it…”</p><p>“That’s a <em>good</em> fear, though,” Ernie said. “Just like how Professor Lupin said there was nothing wrong with being afraid of Sirius Black. You don’t want to get in trouble, Hannah. It’s not worth it.”</p><p>“But if she’s so afraid of it, she’ll never do <em>anything</em> fun,” Susan said. “Trouble isn’t only things like going in the Forbidden Forest or breaking your curfew… it’s things like playing hide and seek in the Library, or skipping stones on the far end of the lake where the mermaids are, or seeing if you can get away with ordering Firewhisky in Hogsmeade…”</p><p>“I wouldn’t want to risk any of that,” Hannah said. “I don’t even go into the Three Broomsticks.”</p><p>“See what I mean?” Susan said.</p><p>“So it’s settled, then,” Zacharias said. “Hannah has to do something to land her in detention, and she’ll see it’s not all that bad.” Before Hannah could protest, he added, “I’ve had plenty, and I’m still standing.”</p><p>“But not <em>morally</em> upstanding,” Ernie said. He paused. “I did wonder why you never joined us in the Three Broomsticks, though…”</p><p>“We’ll think of something after the holidays,” Justin said. “How exciting! We’re going to get you into detention, Hannah, I swear it.”</p><p>Hannah buried her face in her hands. “Oh, Merlin,” she said, muffled. “I can’t believe I’m friends with you lot.”</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Draco couldn’t believe he’d made it through the last Christmas holidays without talking to Zacharias. They were the only two of their cohort remaining at Hogwarts, as ever, and having the dorm to themselves was the most fun Draco had ever had. They stayed up late talking and playing chess every night, and didn’t do a single bit of homework. Somehow Zacharias had procured a bottle of Firewhisky, half-empty—“It pays to have older friends,” was all he said—and they tried it at midnight under a full moon, just for the ceremony of it all. Neither of them made it through more than a shot; it was <em>disgusting</em>.</p><p>Most nights, they ended up falling asleep in the same bed, one or the other. Draco was not insensible to how it would have looked, if any of the others were there, but it wasn’t weird. They never touched or anything. Just lay there telling scary stories, laughing at stupid jokes, and making fun of Gryffindors.</p><p>There was no shortage of Gryffindors to be made fun of, though partway through the break it took on a grim edge: Harry Potter had been given a Firebolt for Christmas, only the best new broom on the market. Draco and Zacharias now looked like utter tools with their Nimbus 2001s.</p><p>“We should steal it,” Draco said. “I want that damn broom for myself.”</p><p>But Professor McGonagall beat them to it, confiscating the broom not long after. Word on the rumour mill was that nobody knew who sent it to Potter, and McGonagall was concerned for his safety.</p><p>“If the broom were cursed, I wish she’d let him keep it,” Zacharias said. They were sitting out in the snow, under a clear sky, after racing—and hoping Potter would see, just so they could show off that they had good brooms and he didn’t. “Potter could do with a good cursing.”</p><p>“I don’t know,” Draco said. Potter was a prick because he was in Gryffindor, this much was certain. But… he and Draco had had a couple of perfectly normal conversations last year. “I don’t think he’s <em>that</em> bad.”</p><p>“What?” Zacharias laughed, shocked. “You think Potter’s alright? With his whole Boy Who Lived schtick? The way he acts like he’s so much better than the rest of us mortals?”</p><p>Draco was about to respond, but they had chosen an unfortunate moment for the conversation: Pansy Parkinson passed by, arm in arm with another Slytherin girl, and said, “What’s this?”</p><p>Zacharias, because at the end of the day he was on Draco’s side no matter what, snapped, “None of your fucking business.”</p><p>“Funny,” Pansy said sweetly. “I could have sworn that you were talking about how much you like Harry Potter.”</p><p>“Piss off, Parkinson,” Draco said. He didn’t have enough energy for something more clever. “What are you even doing here?”</p><p>“Staying over Christmas?” she said. “I’m keeping Tracey company while her parents get divorced.”</p><p>“Over Christmas,” Tracey emphasised, in a surprisingly working class accent for one of Pansy’s friends. “And you <em>definitely</em> said you think Potter’s great.”</p><p>“So great you wish he was Headmaster,” Pansy said.</p><p>“I bet you’re lining up every morning to tie his laces.”</p><p>“Falling over yourself to make sure his shoes are shiny. Oh, how tragic!”</p><p>“Up yours,” Zacharias said. “You think you’re any better? I’ve seen the way you hang around Blaise Zabini, Parkinson. Like you think class is something you can catch like a cold.” He scrunched up his face like he was going to sneeze. “Haaa—haaaaa—”</p><p>“Oh, yeah, because you know what class is,” Tracey said. “Uhh, is it the thing you pull out when you stick a finger in your ear?”</p><p>“Boys are so gross,” Pansy said, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Of course they love Potter. He’s just as bad as they are.”</p><p>“I’m not wasting my time on this argument,” Zacharias said. “Draco, we’re not wasting our time. Come on.” When Draco didn’t move, Zacharias grabbed him by the elbow. “Come <em>on</em>.”</p><p>Pansy’s voice rang out after them: “Couldn’t even think of a good comeback, because they know it’s true!”</p><p>Once they were back in the castle, Zacharias all but pushed Draco against the rough stone wall. “What the hell was that? What the fuck? You weren’t even going to stand up for yourself? They utterly humiliated us!”</p><p>“You think so, too,” Draco snapped. “You think I’m a loony because I, I don’t hate Potter anymore, don’t you!”</p><p>“Fucking <em>no</em>,” Zacharias said. “You always acted like you hate him, so I’ve been taking the mickey out of him too because you deserve someone in your corner, even if you’re an idiot who can’t string together a good enough comeback to basic shit like that.” Zacharias drew breath. “I don’t give a fuck about Potter!”</p><p>Draco’s knees crumpled beneath him; he leant back against the wall, letting the cold seep through his clothes. “I couldn’t stop thinking,” he said, “that I should’ve been with them. Making fun of some Potter obsessives in Hufflepuff, or whatever.”</p><p>“You are thicker than a brick,” Zacharias said. “You really still want to be one of them?”</p><p>“No,” Draco said, and that he meant. Even if the fears crept back in, the sense he was missing out on who he was <em>meant</em> to be he knew where he stood. Who he <em>really</em> was. “Not when I have people like you in my corner.”</p><p>“Yeah, well, don’t get used to it. Next time I’m throwing you to the dogs so you can fend for yourself.”</p><p>Draco stiffened, and something must have shown in his expression, because Zacharias put his palms up in apology.</p><p>“I’m kidding. You know I have your back.”</p><p>“Whenever Potter gets his broom back,” Draco said—changing the topic because he too was uncomfortable with sentimentality, “we should challenge him to a race.”</p><p>“Okay, I lied, a bit,” Zacharias said. “I kind of do give a fuck. Let’s destroy him.”</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Potter had his Firebolt back, Quidditch season had begun again in earnest, and their race happened in early February. It had stopped being fun, though, when Draco realised that Zacharias was just using it as an excuse to suss Potter out as a Quidditch competitor. The Hufflepuff against Gryffindor match had long passed, but it had been cut short because of Dementors on the pitch—Zacharias had been so shaken by the experience that he said if he saw a Boggart again, it might well be one of those bastards. But what mattered more was that Zacharias now took his rivalry with Potter more seriously than Draco had ever taken his half-hearted attempt at it, and was desperate to play a proper game against him.</p><p>The day after the race, Zacharias was back at it: “We want to race you again,” he told Potter, cornering him at breakfast. Draco was, at least, grateful to be included.</p><p>“Uh, not right now,” Potter said. “I kind, of, uh… Sirius Black broke into my dorm last night and tried to kill me, I think?”</p><p>“Alright, wow, intense,” Zacharias said, unfussed. “You think he’s going to come and get you out on the grounds, though? I mean, that would be a bit brazen.”</p><p>Potter looked flabbergasted by this. “Look, can you just leave it?”</p><p>As Potter walked off, Zacharias pulled a face which was only partly for Draco’s benefit. “Rod up his arse, am I right?”</p><p>“Yeah,” Draco said, laughing, though he thought if someone tried to murder him he probably wouldn’t be in the mood for a broomstick race, either.</p><p>Back at the Hufflepuff table, Ernie was going on about how he thought he might try to track down Sirius Black himself—that would really do it for his fear. But Zacharias wasn’t interested, and spoke over Ernie like he wasn’t there. With Zacharias so focused on proving himself against Potter and his Firebolt, it was almost a relief for Draco to go out onto the lawns after breakfast and run through the boring basics with Justin and Anthony. Justin had come back from the winter break with renewed vigour, and Anthony, it seemed, had even been practising.</p><p>“Let’s try going above head height today,” Draco said. “Not too far, but enough that you might get a little scared. Think you can manage that, Finch-Fletchley?”</p><p>“No,” Justin said. “Well, yes—I think so.”</p><p>Anthony nudged him. “There’s the spirit.”</p><p>Justin kicked off hesitantly at first, hovering around three feet and anxiously looking down every few seconds. “This isn’t so bad,” he said. “Nothing bad is happening. I don’t feel like I’m going to vomit.”</p><p>“Time to go a little higher,” Draco said. Anthony was already well above them, flying in very conservative circles. “See now, if you fall, both of us will be able to catch you. There’s really nothing to worry about.”</p><p>“It’s not really about the fear of falling,” Justin said. At Draco’s confused expression he said, “I mean, I’ve fallen over plenty. It’s the uncertainty. Physics, you know—it doesn’t work the same up here. If I make the wrong move… alright, maybe it is about falling.”</p><p>“But you haven’t yet,” Draco said.</p><p>“And,” Anthony added, circling back down to join them, “if I, the clumsiest person on Earth, can do it without falling now, you certainly can.”</p><p>“Alright,” Justin said. “Alright, I’ll just…”</p><p>Slowly, painfully slowly, he began to climb. Draco stayed lower, in case something did go terribly wrong and he had to catch Justin. But nothing did go wrong: Justin picked up speed, and soon he was flying. He kept level at head height for a few minutes before kicking off again, and making it even a little higher.</p><p>“Look at you!” Anthony said. “Isn’t it fun?”</p><p>“It’s terrifying!” Justin called back, but he was laughing, and flying higher and higher. Facing his fear.</p><p>Draco flew up to join the two of them; he couldn’t believe anyone found this scary at all. Flying was part of him. This broom—even if it wasn’t a Firebolt—was part of him. The wind and the sky and the height, they were all part of him too, as though these were his wings and his wingspan went out to the horizon. He was calm, unshakeable, bold and brilliant.</p><p>He screamed, and nearly fell off his broom.</p><p>“There it is!” Draco shouted, pointing down at the lawn. “You see it! The dog!”</p><p>“Oh, yes,” Anthony said mildly. “I see it.”</p><p>Justin nodded. “Yes, it certainly is a dog.”</p><p>“Well what’s it doing here?” Draco righted himself on his broom. “We’re not allowed dogs at Hogwarts. Everyone knows that. Anyway they’re, they’re foul. I can’t stand them. Someone should report that thing to a teacher. I mean—”</p><p>“Draco,” Justin said, “are you afraid of dogs?”</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>“So here’s the plan,” Zacharias said. “We go as soon as class ends. Lupin won’t be around the classrooms, but nor will he be at dinner yet—that makes it dangerous, but it’s this or risk people noticing we’re missing from dinner. And there are quite a lot of us. It would be conspicuous.”</p><p>“Merlin on a bicycle,” Hannah said, “I don’t know about this…”</p><p>Susan put an arm around her shoulders. “Come on, this is pretty safe in the scheme of things… unless Draco screams when he sees the Boggart.”</p><p>“I will <em>not</em> scream,” Draco said, though he had wanted to, when Justin told the others he knew what Draco was afraid of and wouldn’t rest until he’d faced it like the rest of them had been forced to.</p><p>“Then it’ll be easy,” Susan said.</p><p>The other part of this, of course, was that Hannah needed to face her fear of getting in trouble. And what better way to start than by sneaking into a mostly-unused classroom? The whole thing was Justin’s idea; now that he was beginning to get over his fear of heights, he was possessed with a wavering belief that everyone else could do it, too. (“Though I’m not sure how you’ll get over your fear of growing up to be boring,” he’d said to Zacharias. “I think you might have to wait that one out.”)</p><p>“Sure,” Hannah said, “easy.”</p><p>Though Draco didn’t think Justin intended it, including Hannah in the plan meant that Draco’s fear paled in comparison. After all, he wasn’t really scared of dogs. Not all that much. Well of course, they were horrible creatures. His family estate kept hunting dogs and guard dogs and they always barked at Draco as though they didn’t know who he was, that he was somebody they ought to respect. And they had these big mouths, full of teeth and slobber, and they would jump all over you unprovoked. But Draco certainly wasn’t scared of them. And he could face a Boggart as a dog just fine.</p><p>The five of them congregated after their last class of the day, Charms, and ducked aside to take a shortcut to the Defence classrooms.</p><p>“Are we all prepared?” Justin asked. “Everyone got everything they need?”</p><p>“What could we <em>possibly</em> need,” Draco said.</p><p>“Tissues,” Zacharias said. “For when you start crying like a baby.”</p><p>“And a good attitude,” Susan said.</p><p>“So we’d better leave Draco behind,” Zacharias said.</p><p>Justin shook his head. “I don’t know why we’re bringing you two along.”</p><p>“Moral support,” Susan said. “Plus, Draco isn’t allowed to break rules without us.”</p><p>“It’s the law,” Zacharias added, shrugging. “Sorry.”</p><p>They could be so rude to him, but Draco wouldn’t have wanted to do this without them, either. If he was afraid, and he wasn’t showing it, then it was because of them.</p><p>The corridor to the classroom with the wardrobe was deserted. Hannah’s panic smoothed out to a kind of calm acceptance as she realised they were going to get away with this; when they made it inside the classroom and shut the door behind, she even laughed.</p><p>“There,” Justin said, “not so hard, is it?”</p><p>Hannah, true to form, replied, “We’re not finished yet.”</p><p>The wardrobe stood at the centre of the room, quiet. The others had said they ended up banishing the Boggart at the end of the class, but they were pretty sure Lupin had a whole supply of them, or at least a way of summoning this one back, because he had shown it to the Gryffindors the day before them and the Ravenclaws the day after. Sure enough, as Zacharias approached the wardrobe it rattled ominously, just once, before falling quiet again.</p><p>“Say when,” he said. “Might want to get your wand out first.”</p><p>Draco rolled his eyes. He had his wand handy, and took a step forward, holding it out. He could do this. He could deal with whatever the Boggart threw at him—be it a dog or his father or Pansy Parkinson laughing at him.</p><p>“Open it,” he said.</p><p>Zacharias pulled open the door with a flourish and then got right out of the way, as the very same dog from the lawns came bounding at Draco, its tongue out and teeth bared. He held firm. He wanted to turn and run and—alright, he was definitely afraid of dogs. But Draco had an advantage on the Boggart: he was even more afraid of his friends thinking he was weak. Good luck trying to shape-shift into <em>that</em>!</p><p>“<em>Riddikulus</em>!”</p><p>The spell shot out of his wand, and the dog began to spin in a circle, chasing its own tail. As well as that, it sprouted a peacock feather tail, and a crown on its head, a set of fetching purple dress robes billowing as it ran.</p><p>“My goodness,” came a voice from behind Draco, “that <em>is</em> ridiculous.”</p><p>He turned—it was Professor Lupin. Hannah had gone pale and was half-hiding behind Susan, but Draco stood firm.</p><p>“Professor,” he said, “I’m sorry for running out of class when you did this the first time. But I’m not afraid anymore.”</p><p>Lupin was holding a folded up piece of parchment, which he now pocketed, and exchanged for his wand. “I don’t doubt it.” With a lazy flick, he sent the dressed-up peacock-dog back into the wardrobe. “Would you like to tell me why you didn’t feel the need to ask me first? I would have been happy to let you try your hand with the Boggart in your own time.”</p><p>Justin piped up: “We’re all getting over our fears, Professor. Hannah used to be afraid of getting in trouble!”</p><p>“I still am,” Hannah said, queasy.</p><p>“I’m not going to give any of you detentions,” Professor Lupin said. He sounded more amused than angry. “I just want you to know—all of you—that you can come and talk to me, at any time, about any worries you’re having.”</p><p>“There’s a dog on the grounds!” Draco blurted. Everyone turned to stare at him. “A big black dog, just like the one the Boggart became. I think a student has been hiding it out there, since we’re not allowed to have dogs as pets, you know.”</p><p>“I see.” Lupin had a strange expression on his face; maybe he didn’t like dogs either. “Just like that one? And you’ve seen it… where exactly?”</p><p>“Near the lake, by the west side of the castle too,” Draco said. He was aware he sounded like Ernie now, but he pressed on. “This isn’t about me, Professor. I just don’t think anyone should be hiding an unauthorised pet on school grounds.”</p><p>“No, I quite agree,” Professor Lupin said. “I’ll see what I can do about it, but in the meantime, Draco, I suggest you put the dog out of your mind. Fear isn’t just something that hides in a wardrobe, waiting to pounce. When you’re afraid of something, you’ll see it everywhere. It’ll get lodged in your subconscious, and the harder you try to block it out, the stronger it’ll stick. So the best thing you can do, now, is try your best to forget about it.”</p><p>Draco thought about his tea leaves. Had it really been the Grim, or had the Grim just been the last thing he wanted to see? Lupin was right, of course; he really was the smartest teacher they’d ever had.</p><p>“Thank you,” Draco said. He cast a glance at Hannah. “And thank you for not giving us detention.”</p><p>“It’s my pleasure,” Lupin said. “You know, I got in a lot of trouble when I was a student here. I know just how much fun it can be. Just try not to do it where I can see, next time.”</p><p>On the walk back to the common room before dinner, none of them spoke. The silence was pulsing with the adrenaline of a narrow escape, the sense that though things had worked out better than expected, the danger had been very real nevertheless, and the five of them were all the stronger for it.</p><p>Draco broke the tension at last: “So whose classroom are we sneaking into next? How about we give Snape a try?”</p><p>Hannah laughed nervously, but the others roared—it was so ridiculous, surely they wouldn’t. Surely! It was that feeling, though, the <em>what if</em>, that kept them laughing, alive with possibility. And if Draco was going to keep finding things to fear, then there was nowhere else he’d rather face it.</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>i just want to be clear i absolutely do NOT agree with draco's opinions about dogs! dogs are good and lovely creatures! however, they are very boisterous, and they do freak me out a little, so i can empathise with him. it's been hard to write him uncritically spewing pureblood rhetoric, and this fic was a nice break from that, but writing him being so mean about dogs was very hard too :(</p><p>thanks to <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/18241/18241-h/18241-h.htm">project gutenberg</a> for helping me get some good details for the tasseography scene, which may well be my favourite thing i've written all year.</p><p>one last note - this will be the last time i do a one-fic-per-hogwarts-year sort of thing with this series. there will be two fics for fourth year... look forward to the yule ball in the next installment!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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